Henry's Bar
by Samantha14
Summary: A rainy New York evening, a warm and quiet bar, an almost certain alcoholic, and two old flames: a recipe for, well, something. 1 of 1.


Title: Henry's Bar  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. And what I do own is broken. So sue me and get broken shit. Capisce?  
Summary: It's raining. Two old friends inadvertently meet in a bar and catch up.  
A/N: One-shot. Don't get pissed about the story. My other stories are currenly on my broken computer, and I was forced to write because otherwise my head would have exploded. So here it is.  
Rated: PG-13 because I let slip some expletives toward the end. And some kinda heavy subject matter. But not too heavy. (T? What the hell? Okay, it's rated T.)

* * *

He slipped into the bar quietly, thankful for the dry comforting warmth offered up by the heater. As he settled onto a stool at the counter, he discarded his makeshift newspaper umbrella and nodded to the barkeeper. 

"What'll you have?" the younger man asked.

"Whiskey," Jess Mariano replied.

"Started to rain, huh?" the barkeeper asked, setting a glass in front of Jess.

"New York rain," Jess said. "The skies open with no warning."

"Gotta love it," the barkeeper said with a smile, before walking off to help another customer.

Jess contemplated his whiskey in the sudden silence. He was trying to decide - did he want to get pissed tonight? If he did, he would drink the warming whiskey in two gulps and quickly ask for another. He had the ability to get pissed tonight. He had no work in the morning, no one was waiting for him at home, and this bar was thankfully only two blocks from home. He'd navigated a total of eleven blocks home while pissed, but that twelfth one got him hopelessly lost.

Still contemplating, he glanced up at the door as it opened. He smirked as he saw who it was. He downed the whiskey in one gulp, and with a slight gasp, waved the barkeeper over again.

"Same?" the man asked, raising his eyebrows at Jess's empty glass.

Jess shook his head. "Two beers. Dark."

The barkeeper, suddenly certain that this man was an alcoholic, merely raised his eyebrows again and set two dark-bottled beers in front of Jess. As the brunette who had just entered walked up to the counter to talk to the barkeeper, Jess turned around in his chair and smiled at her.

She immediately burst out laughing and collapsed onto the stool next to him.

"We were just talking about you earlier today," she said after a minute, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. Rory Gilmore-Koman smiled at her ex-boyfriend and pointed to the second beer sitting in front of him. "That for me?"

Jess nodded and handed it to her. He watched as she took a sip, and noticed that she didn't flinch at the taste or anything. She'd certainly grown up.

"So, what are you doing here?" she asked, turning to look at him with a motion that should have set her long hair swinging. It was only then that Jess noticed that her hair wasn't pulled back like he'd thought, but was instead cut in a pageboy, close to her head.

He shrugged. "It was raining."

She smiled at his answer. Typical Jess. "I didn't mean here here," she said, gesturing at the bar. "I meant New York. Last I heard, you were back in California."

"'New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it - once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.'" He finished the quote and took a sip of his beer, avoiding looking at her.

She smiled and bit her lip in thought, a new habit she'd picked up since she'd been married. "I wanna say Robert Sherwood?" she asked tentatively.

"No," he shook his head. "Johnathan Swift."

"Oh, not fair!" she exclaimed. "He wasn't even an Algonquin Round Table favorite."

"I didn't say he was," Jess smirked.

She took another sip of her beer and looked at him thoughtfully. "So New York's home?" she asked.

He nodded.

"And is it anyone else's home?" she asked. He finally looked up at her, a little confused and surprised. She pointed at his left hand. "Tell-tale ring."

He held out his hand and looked at the thick yellow band around his ring finger. "Oh, yeah." He smiled, and reached into his back left pocket for his wallet. He pulled out a stack of pictures, causing Rory to get excited.

"Oh, yay, pictures," she said quietly, reaching for them.

"I only stayed in California long enough to find Nina," he said, pointing at the picture of himself and what must have been Nina. She was at least half a foot shorter than him and hardly came up to his shoulders, but she was beautiful. She had gorgeous bright red hair, the perfect color of the sun at sunset, and it fell onto her shoulders in waves. He was smiling in the picture, a genuine happy smile, and Rory smiled at how in love they seemed.

"Aw," she said involuntarily at the next picture, a Christmas picture with three girls of three different ages. All three had auburn hair, an obvious mixture of their parents.

"That's Isabella, Katelyn, and Lila," he said, obvious pride in his voice. "Isabella's five, Katelyn's three, and Lila's eighteen months. That's from two months ago, so she's only sixteen months there."

"They're adorable, Jess," Rory said softly, feeling a slight ache in her abdomen. Her thirty-sixth birthday was fast approaching, and her family wasn't how she'd expected it at all.

"Thanks," Jess said proudly, reaching for his pictures and putting them back up. "Do you have any pictures?" He nodded at Rory's left hand. "You have a tell-tale ring as well."

Rory tried to get over the sorrow she always felt when talking about children and pulled her picture organizer out of her pocketbook. "That's Trevor Koman," she said, pointing to her husband, a man of similar coloring to herself, in their wedding picture. "Our wedding was in 2010."

"Coming up on ten years, huh?" Jess asked, looking at Rory. "You've got to have children."

Rory nodded through the tears collecting behind her eyes and turned the page for Jess. "That's Trent, right after he was born."

"How old is he now?" Jess asked, turning the page and expecting to find a picture of a seven or eight year old boy, proudly playing soccer.

"He, um," Rory glanced at the ceiling, willing her tears to die down. "He died when he was two weeks. SIDS."

Jess abruptly dropped the pictures on the table and looked at Rory, shocked. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I, I should have known. I mean, Luke should have told me or something. But I haven't talked to him in years, and - Nina and the girls and I have been out of the country -" He cut himself off and paled, watching as Rory silently let a tear or two slip. He took a deep breath and steadied himself. He stared at the fake wood paneling on the wall directly across from him for about a minute, before turning back to Rory and saying softly, "If you don't mind my prying, how long ago was it?"

"Seven years," she replied, just as softly. "He would have been seven years old this May."

Jess followed Rory's line of vision to see the wall he'd been staring at before. Silently he reached his hand until it covered hers, in the best way he knew to comfort her. She tensed when he first touched her, and then relaxed, and, after a minute, slipped her hand from under his to take another sip of her beer.

"Well," she said, a slight smile on her lips, "I sure know how to kill a party."

"Oh, no, Rory, really, it's my fault -"

She held up a hand to cut him off. "No. You didn't know. And let's get off this subject. When was the last time you saw Luke and Mom?"

"Oh, God," he said, trying to remember. "Nina and I got married six years ago, in California, and then we moved to Paris, and we've just moved home as of two weeks ago because we want to get settled before Isabella starts kindergarten in the fall." He got a horrified look on his face, and hurried to correct himself, but Rory wouldn't let him.

"Knowing you, she's probably already reading classic literature," she said instead, smiling at him.

Incredibly proud of his daughter, he said, "Well, not quite, but she's started those fake little chapter 'I-Can-Read!' books. You know what I mean?"

Rory nodded. "So have you seen how big the boys have gotten?"

"No," he said, a little apologetically. "I haven't really talked to Luke since Lizzie made him call me on my wedding day and congratulate me. How old are the boys now?"

"Leo's 11 and Loeb's 9," she rattled off, causing Jess to scoff and shake his head.

"Only Lorelai," he said. "Only Lorelai would name kids Leopold and Loeb. And only Luke would let her."

Rory smiled. "They're a great couple," she said. "You should see them together."

"I did," he said. "I was at their wedding, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," she said, blushing slightly. "That was the last time I saw you."

"How long ago was that?" he asked. "I wanna say four -"

"Fourteen years," she nodded. "It was a week after my graduation."

"And we...kissed," he recalled, a slight smirk on his face. "God, what was with us and weddings?"

"Well, my relationship with Brad was getting a little stale..." She trailed off with a grin.

"You know, I thought about you when I got married," he said. "You'd really love Nina," he said, shaking his head. "She's spontaneous and literate and hilarious and the best goody two shoes you'll ever meet."

"What does she do?" she asked, genuinely curious about the woman who could tame this man sitting in front of her and cause him to get an almost goofy look on his face.

"Well, before we got married, she was a systems analyst. And she's tried to explain it to me numerous times, and it is definitely as boring as it sounds. But after we got married, we were on this long honeymoon in Paris, and she wasn't working, and I was working by correspondence. I made enough so she doesn't have to work anymore, so she's going to stay at home at least until Lila's in middle school. Nina was a latchkey kid, and so she wants to be home when her kids get home."

Rory smiled. "That's sweet," she said softly. "I'd probably do that, too." Jess got a panicked look on his face again, but Rory just shot him a tight smile. "And what do you do?" she asked.

"Well, I was working as a book reviewer for the New York Times, but since we've moved back I'm going to try to get a job teaching at the New School."

"Oh, wow! That's great! I always knew you could do it."

"And what are you doing, Mrs. Koman?"

"Gilmore-Koman," she corrected. "I, strangely enough, am executive producer at The Tonight Show."

He raised his eyebrows, and she laughed.

"I know," she said. "I never would have expected it either. I mean, I wanted to be Christiane Amanpour. And yet," she waved a hand around her, "here I am."

"Henry's Bar?" he asked.

She shot him a look, and then laughed again. "Trevor's a writer with SNL, and has been for eleven years. We met in the lobby of the building when he was going up for his first interview. He was so nervous he looked like he was about to throw up."

"And so you married him?" Jess asked incredulously.

"Well, one of my best friends at the time, Andie Di, struck up a Gilda Radner-Alan Zweibel friendship with him, and so that's when we really met."

"'At the time'?" he repeated.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. She's still one of my best friends, but I haven't seen her for a while. She's on a comedy tour currently."

"That's gotta be cool," he said, taking a sip of his almost forgotten beer.

"What?" she asked.

"Two best friends on tour. But for different reasons, of course."

"Of course," she said. "Yeah, Lane's been on tour for over two years. I saw her two months ago, when she was in New York for some promotional stuff. She stopped by the show."

"Tough?" he asked.

"Yeah," she nodded. "I miss Lane," she said softly.

"I missed you," he said, just as softly.

She looked up, and smiled. "No hard feelings?"

"No hard feelings," he repeated. "Can we be friends?"

"Yes, of course," she said quickly. "I'd love to meet Nina."

"I'd love to meet Trevor," he said.

"We'll all have to get together sometime. What do you say?"

"Sure," he said, smiling.

She looked at the clock and then took a last swig of her beer. "I've gotta go," she said. "I was supposed to be home thirty minutes ago. Trevor'll think I've been mugged." She pulled a notebook and a pen out of her purse and quickly wrote her number down. She ripped the paper out and handed it to Jess. "If you ever get famous, call me, and I'll book you on the show."

He smiled. "We'll set something up tomorrow?" he asked.

"Sure," she said, standing. "It was great to see you, Jess."

"It was great to see you, Rory."

She stood there for just a second, contemplating, before leaning towards him and kissing him on the cheek. "The ball's in your court now. You better call me."

"Yes, ma'am." He saluted her, just to see her smile. She did, and then waved as she left the bar. He noticed that the rain had stopped as the door swung shut behind her. He stayed in his seat, contemplating the drink in front of him once again. His beer, though only half-empty, was by now warm, and he knew it would taste like shit. He also knew that it was going to be fucking freezing outside. He waved the barkeeper over and ordered another whiskey. He took half a sip - just enough to warm him up a little - and then went to the register to pay.


End file.
